1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system and method for serving information through the Internet.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, with the development of computer and data communications technologies, those contents to be provided through the Internet have increased in number with enhanced quality and quantity. This results from the heart of Internet, as information serving means for serving information to receivers regardless of the locations of the receivers at any time desired, wherein the entry barrier on the side of information senders is quite low.
The contents (information) to be provided through the Internet are, generally, transmitted in response to a request from a user as a receiver, unlike the cable and wireless television broadcasting which has conventionally been utilized as the information serving means. Of those contents to be provided through the Internet, the commercial contents are frequently updated because of their necessity.
Since the commercial contents to be provided through the Internet need to be transmitted frequently, the following problems arose, as will be explained below.
The first problem is that a user utilizing the contents can not easily be aware of the time when the data of the contents to be provided through the Internet are to be updated. Hence, the user accesses the contents when he/she thinks the contents are updated in accordance with information, such as the last updated date and time, etc. as shown by the content provider. However, the user may miss the right time to access the updated content, or the user may repeatedly access the contents which have not been updated for a while, because the contents are not necessarily updated periodically.
The second problem is that an advertiser, who would like to run an advertisement (banner) to be provided through the Internet, can not easily determine in which contents the advertisement should be placed. Conventionally, such an advertiser refers to characteristics of users who have accessed the contents so as to determine whether to place the advertisement in the contents. However the information regarding the number of accesses or characteristics of users having accessed contents may be modified according to the intention of the content provider. Such information is not to represent whether the contents are actually observed. Therefore, such information is not really worth obtaining for the advertiser.